Equally marvellous, too, in other respects, is the adiantum;1 it is green in summer, never dies in the winter, mani-
fests an aversion to water, and, when sprinkled with water or
dipped in it, has all the appearance of having been dried, so
great is its antipathy to moisture; a circumstance to which it
owes the name of "adiantum,"2 given to it by the Greeks.
In other respects, it is a shrub which might he well employed
in ornamental gardening.3 Some persons give it the name of
"callitrichos,"4 and others of "polytrichos," both of them
bearing reference to its property of imparting colour to the
hair. For this purpose, a decoction of it is made in wine
with parsley-seed, large quantities of oil being added, if it is
desired to make the hair thick and curly as well: it has also
the property of preventing the hair from coming off.

There are two kinds of this plant, one being whiter than
the other, which last is swarthy and more stunted. It is the
larger kind that is known as the "polytrichos," or, as some
call it, the "trichomanes." Both plants have tiny branches
of a bright black colour, and leaves like those of fern, the
lower ones being rough and tawny, and all of them lying close
together and attached to footstalks arranged on either side of
the stem: of root, so to say, there is nothing.5 This plant
frequents umbrageous rocks, walls sprinkled with the spray
of running water, grottoes of fountains more particularly, and
crags surrounded with streamlets, a fact that is all the more
remarkable in a plant which derives no benefit from water.

The adiantum is of singular efficacy in expelling and breaking calculi of the bladder, the dark kind in particular; and it
is for this reason, in my opinion, rather than because it grows
upon stones, that it has received from the people of our
country its name of "saxifragum."6 It is taken in wine, the
usual dose being a pinch of it in three fingers. Both these
plants are diuretics, and act as an antidote to the venom of serpents and spiders: a decoction of them in wine arrests looseness
of the bowels. A wreath of them, worn on the head, alleviates
head-ache. For the bite of the scolopendra they are applied
topically, but they must be removed every now and then, to
prevent them from cauterizing the flesh:7 they are employed
in a similar manner also for alopecy.8 They disperse
scrofulous sores, scurf on the face, and running ulcers of the
head. A decoction of them is useful also for asthma, affections of the liver and spleen, enlarged secretions of the gall,
and dropsy. In combination with wormwood, they form a
liniment for strangury and affections of the kidneys; they
have the effect also of bringing away the after-birth, and act
as an emmenagogue. Taken with vinegar or juice of brambleberries, they arrest hæmorrhage. Combined with rose-oil
they are employed as a liniment for excoriations on infants,
the parts affected being first fomented with wine. The leaves,
steeped in the urine of a youth who has not arrived at puberty,
and beaten up with saltpetre, compose a liniment which, it is
said, prevents wrinkles from forming on the abdomen in
females. It is a general belief that partridges and cocks are
rendered more pugnacious if this plant is mixed with their
food; and it is looked upon as particularly beneficial for
cattle.

1 Fée identifies it with the Asplenium trichomanes of Linnæus, spleen-
wort, or ceterach. The Adiantum of Hippocrates and other Greek writers,
he takes to be the Adiantum capillus Veneris of Linnæus. Venus' hair, or
maiden hair. Though Pliny would seem not to have been acquainted
with the latter plant, he ascribes to the first one many of its properties and
characteristics deriving his information, probably, from a writer who was
acquainted with both. See B. xxi. c. 60.

2 From ἀ, "not," and διαίνω, "to wet." This is owing, Fée remarks, to the coat of waxen enamel or varnish with which the leaves are
provided. The same is the case also with the leaf of the cabbage and
other plants.

3 The Aspienium trichomanes, Fée says, would not admit of being
clipped for ornamental gardening.

4 "Fine hair," and "thick hair." These names originated more probably in the appearance of the plant than in any effects it may have produced as a dye for the hair.

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